To Support Cloud Computing, IBM Enhances Storage Systems

IBM has rolled out enhancements across its systems portfolio designed to help organizations adopt cloud computing as they build toward Software Defined Environments (SDE). Enhancements to IBM’s Smarter Storage line of Flash, disk and tape systems are designed to give companies faster access to business information and Big Data insights. In addition, new High Performance Computing solutions bring HPC capabilities to mainstream servers.

“Cloud computing and Big Data analytics are playing key roles in helping organizations lower operating expenses, improve efficiencies, and increase productivity,” says Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president of the IBM Systems and Technology Group. “But they’re also enabling greater and faster access to business insights, which is fundamentally transforming the ways in which organizations, public and private, are interacting with, learning from, and supporting their customers.”

The company rolled out its new IBM FlashSystem family of all-Flash appliances, and also announced enhancements to its storage portfolio, such as added support for 4TB drives to its Storwize V7000 and XIV advanced storage systems.

IBM also enhanced its Easy Tier technology, which helps boost performance even further by caching the “hottest,” most-frequently accessed data to the EXP30 Ultra SSD I/O Drawer on IBM Power Systems. When these servers are used in conjunction with the IBM DS8870 Storage System, the new Easy Tier Server capabilities can help boost storage performance by up to five times.

Other updates to the storage line include an IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Edition, based on LTFS Library Edition, but lets clients use tape storage as a separate tier for greater management and access.

IBM also announced the IBM SAN96B-5 96-port, a 16Gbps Gen 5 Fibre Channel Storage Area Networking (FC SAN) switch with Fabric Vision technology. The new switch enables faster insights by doubling the data throughput as compared to previous generation SANs. With the new switch clients can maximize up-time, optimize data performance and unify SAN management through innovative Fabric Vision diagnostic, monitoring and management technology.